1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing a print shop system in which a plurality of printers are connected to and managed by a server. In particular, it relates to a method and apparatus of managing print jobs and printers in a print shop for printing documents that contain both color and black and white pages.
2. Description of Related Art
A professional print shop typically has a plurality of printers connected to a server by a network, where the server controls the printing of customer jobs on one or more printers. The printers in a print shop typically have different characteristics and capabilities. In particular, a print shop typically has both black and white printers and color printers. A conventional practice is to print documents containing only black and white pages (including gray level images) using black and white printers, and to print documents containing color pages using color printers. Printing with a color printer is typically more costly than printing with a black and white printer.